Not enough social security numbers?

I just realized the other night that I don’t know how the social security numbers work.

There are 9 digits in the social security number. That allows 1 million different numbers. There are 600 million people in the United States.

How does that work? There has to be about 700 people with the same SS#, including those that have died.

So is a SS# associated with 700 unique names?

If some one knows please help me understand.

There are WAY more than a million available numbers, more like 10,000,000,000. Minus the number ranges not used. This has some good info on the system.

This site explains how you get the total number of nine digit combinations.

[edit on 29-7-2006 by Kellter]

I’m sorry. Your right, there would be 1 billion numbers not 1 million. I must have had my eyes crossed.